A few years ago, marketing strategies and goals were determined by historical data. When there were disruptions in the market, businesses had to work back and see what went wrong in order to catch up. Now existing marketing automation tools have made real-time marketing accessible. These systems holistically blend traditional marketing activities such as email marketing, content management, SEO, CRM, lead scoring and analytics into a tool that delivers relevant and live messages to prospects.

B2B businesses, more particularly those in the technology industry, have been the first to make use of these marketing automation tools. However, for some businesses, integrating all tools into a sole system have proven to be quite a struggle. According to a research carried out by the Aberdeen Group, businesses who have integrated their tools into a single system and who have used marketing automation have been able to increase their conversion rate by a staggering 50 percent or more.

When starting such a marketing automation initiative and when looking for the most appropriate tools, marketers might want to consider existing tools first. By using the tools one would be able to determine opportunities to integrate tools. This would be the occasion to determine whether there are any redundancies in tool features.

Technology is only one part of the secret for marketing automation. As the demand for marketing automation grows, so will that of marketing technologists. These technologists would need to possess in-depth knowledge of the large array of marketing technology available and how to effectively make use of them in order to lead to effective business results.